Thoughts On Vermeer's "Woman In Blue Reading A Letter" on Loan at the Getty Museum

by Gregg Chadwick

Johannes Vermeer
Woman In Blue Reading A Letter 
(Brieflezende vrouw)
18 5/16" x 15 3/8" oil on canvas 1663-64 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest) 

 "It seems appropriate that a gesture so paradigmatic of Vermeer's art, should appear concerned with the weighing and balancing of light itself."

- Edward Snow

Currently on view at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, is Vermeer's haunting painting Woman In Blue Reading A Letter. On loan from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Getty is the artwork's last stop on a world tour before returning to the Netherlands for the reopening of the Rijksmuseum on April 13, 2013. The painting is on view at the Getty through Sunday, March 31, 2013.

The Getty has thoughtfully installed Woman in Blue Reading a Letter amidst paintings by Vermeer's Dutch contemporaries. On a recent visit to see the work at the Getty with my friend, art conservator René Boitelle, we both were struck by how modern Vermeer's painting looks in a room full of other 17th century paintings. Both the cinematic quality of Vermeer's art and the painting's rich harmonies in blue seem to carry the work forward into our time. Also, the mystery of the image gives space for the viewer to enter into the scene and to create a sort of pictorial meaning out of the clues presented. 

This is what we appear to see:

It is morning. A woman fresh from bed, she still wears her nightcoat, stands before a window quietly reading a letter. It is a cool, wintery Northern light. The light from the window provides only a hint of warmth in a scene limned by blues. The woman's flesh is grayed with transparent glazes of lapis lazuli, as is the wall behind her. Reds seem to have been banished from the composition. Did Vermeer plan to add layers of color to this scene or did he intend to leave an image in blues?

On the wall in this blue room is a map quite similar to one printed by the Dutch artist and mapmaker Claes Jansz. Visscher in 1652. The map depicts Holland in the 17th century and brings to mind thoughts of seafaring and trade - major Dutch commercial activities then and now.  

Claes Jansz. Visscher
Map of Holland
Third State published by his grand-son Nicolaas II

Just as twitter, text messaging, and e-mail now dominate written communication, in the 17th century the personal letter became the preferred means of transmitting thoughts and ideas to close acquaintances, friends, family, and lovers. Of course official and legal correspondence had long been in use, but the discussion of private thoughts, feelings, and desires in epistolary form came into fashion during the 1600's along with a rise in middle class wealth and literacy in the Netherlands. I can't help but wonder who the letter is from. Is the map a clue? Is the letter from an absent husband? Lover? Did she receive it recently? Or did she pull it like a treasure from the open box on the abstracted table in the foreground? She reads with rapt attention. Perhaps this is her morning ritual - to each day reread the words her love left for her to cherish until his homecoming. Vermeer, amazingly allows us to witness her private moment of strength and serenity.

Johannes Vermeer
Woman In Blue Reading A Letter (detail)
(Brieflezende vrouw)
18 5/16" x 15 3/8" oil on canvas 1663-64 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest) 

More At:

Vermeer's 'Woman In Blue' Brings Her Mystery, Allure To L.A.

Vermeer's 'Woman in Blue" at the Getty Museum

Looking Closer at Van Eyck: Rediscovering the Ghent Altarpiece

by Gregg Chadwick

The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb known informally as The Ghent Altarpiece was painted by the Flemish artist Jan van Eyck with the assistance of his brother Hubert in the 15th Century.  The multi paneled artwork has been a school to artists since it was unveiled at the Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent in 1432. The series of paintings that form the altarpiece evoke a harmonious universe of beauty and glowing light. 

Jan van Eyck lived and worked in Bruges, Belgium from at least the unveiling of The Ghent Altarpiece in 1432 until his death in 1441. By then the city of Bruges had become one of the most important artistic centers in Europe. Painters traveled from all over the continent to study, collaborate and create in Bruge's fervent environment. Jan van Eyck himself was a transplant, having been born around 1390 in the village of Maaseik, just outside the city of Maastricht which is now part of The Netherlands. 

Amazingly, the breathtaking Ghent Altarpiece is the first agreed upon work in Jan van Eyck's canon. An inscription on the frame indicates that the altarpiece was begun by Jan's brother Hubert and completed on May 6, 1432 by Jan van Eyck. Twelve monumental paintings on wood form the altarpiece which depicts a theological compendium of the Christian faith. 

Recently, the Getty Museum helped fund a program with the Flemish government to clean and analyze the massive artwork with high tech tools. During the process, curators had each panel of the altarpiece digitally photographed. A website has been created that allows viewers to access these panels and to zoom in on details that would otherwise be difficult to perceive. The Getty Museum explains, "the website allows users to zoom in on individual sections of the altarpiece and take a virtual peek under the paint surface by means of infrared reflectography (IRR) and x-radiography, examining the altarpiece in ways never before possible."

I have posted a series of screen shots of details from The Ghent Altarpiece as a sort of visual essay on van Eyck's luminous paintings. I suggest that you visit the website Closer to Van Eyck: Rediscovering the Ghent Altarpiece and create your own journey through this amazing artwork.

More At:
Closer to Van Eyck: Rediscovering the Ghent Altarpiece
The Ghent Altarpiece As Never Seen Before

A Painter of Spanish Life: Manet's Portrait of Madame Brunet

by Gregg Chadwick

Édouard Manet

Portrait of Madame Brunet

52 1/8" x 39 3/8" oil on canvas 1860-1863 (Reworked in 1867)

Recently Purchased by the Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Courtesy Getty Museum

In 1862 in Le Boulevard, a Parisian news sheet which was a sort of precursor to the L.A. Weekly or the Village Voice, the poet Baudelaire wrote a small article entitled Painters and Engravers. This was one of the few times that Baudelaire, who in his essay The Painter of Modern Life called for artists to search for subjects in the rancor and din of the urban street, wrote expressly about the art of his friend Édouard Manet. Baudelaire wrote,"M. Manet is the author of The Spanish Singer, which caused a great sensation in the last Salon. We will see in the next one a number of paintings by him imbued with the flavor of Spain, which leads one to believe that the genius of Spain has fled to France."

With the news that the Getty Museum has purchased Édouard Manet's Portrait of Madame Brunet, art viewers in Los Angeles will be able to answer for themselves: How did Spanish art influence Manet?

Francisco Goya after Diego Velázquez

Portrait of Ferdinand, Cardinal Infante of Spain and Archduke of Austria

etching and drypoint on paper 1778

Courtesy British Museum, London

The composition of Manet's Portrait of Madame Brunet seems to be modeled after Goya's etched version of Vélazquez's Portrait of Ferdinand, Cardinal Infante of Spain and Archduke of Austria. Madame Brunet holds her hands in a position similar to Ferdinand and her dark dress stands out against a light filled landscape in a manner that echoes Vélazquez. Further emphasizing the Spanish influence, the background of Manet's Portrait of Madame Brunet bears a striking resemblance to another Velazquez related work - Philip IV as a Hunter which had been acquired by the Louvre in 1862. At roughly the same time that Manet was painting Madame Brunet he was busy at work on an etching based on this very painting.

Édouard Manet

Portrait of Philip IV after the Workshop of Vélazquez

etching, aquatint, and drypoint on paper circa 1862

Even more striking than his compositional borrowings was Manet's use of oil paint. Manet applied the pigment thickly with spontaneous brushstrokes and flowing form that was inspired by the richness found in the paint-work of Vélazquez. In 1865, Manet visited Spain and reveled in the works of the Spanish masters at the Prado Museum (then known as the Real Museo de Pintura y Escultura).

From Madrid, Manet wrote to Baudelaire, "I've really come to know Vélazquez, and I tell you he is the greatest artist that has ever been." Open brushstrokes full of suggestion allow the viewer to enter imaginatively into Vélazquez's paintings and in a sense finish them. Manet applied this idea to subjects of modern life and created a new way of painting.

Édouard Manet

Portrait of Madame Brunet (Detail)

Courtesy Getty Museum

Édouard Manet

Victorine Meurent

16 7/8" x 17 1/4" oil on canvas circa 1862

Courtesy Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Scott Allan writes in the Getty Museum's blog The Iris, a rich description of Manet's technique in the Portrait of Madame Brunet:
"The signature elements of his original style are blazingly evident: in the brilliant summary execution of the mesmerizing gloves, the subtle wielding of a nuanced range of blacks in the dress, the sharp silhouetting of contours, and in the radical suppression of half-tones and shadows on the pale oval expanse of Mme. Brunet’s strongly lit face."

Perhaps because of the strength of the painting and the lack of nuanced delicacy, the art critic Théodore Duret recounted that, when Madame Brunet first viewed Manet's painting of her she "began crying and left the studio with her husband, never wanting to see the portrait again."

The soft atmosphere found in the painting of Vélazquez is missing. This suppression of delicate halftones coupled with sharp contours took a number of viewers of Manet's work in the 1860's aback. To many the paintings seemed flat, almost like playing-cards. What was Manet up to they wondered?

The immediacy of Manet's subject matter seemed to call for an immediacy of paint handling. Like a Zen clap, Manet's simplified tonal gradations from light to dark emphasized the force of light.

Other influential examples of flattened spacial compositions made their way to Paris. As Manet was reworking his rejected portrait, the 1867 Universal Exposition opened and the artworks, performers and cultural objects in the Japanese pavilion would inspire new directions in the arts.

Édouard Manet

Portrait of Émile Zola

57"x45" oil on canvas 1868

Manet painted a view of the exposition grounds and included a Japanese screen and a woodcut of a Sumo wrestler by the Japanese artist Kuniaki in the background of his Portrait of Emile Zola.  Hanging next to the Kuniaki print in Manet's witty portrait is an engraving after Vélazquez's painting of Bacchus as well as a reproduction of his own Olympia. In another cross-cultural engagement, less than one hundred and fifty years later Japanese artist Takashi Murakami would bring his own superflat paintings to Versailles.

Kawaii- Vacances, Summer Vacation in the Kingdom of the Golden and Untitled Carpet in the Salle des Gardes du Roi at the Chateau de Versailles by Takashi Murakami, via Artinfo

Édouard Manet's painting Portrait of Madame Brunet will go on view at the Getty Museum on December 13, 2011. After writing this piece, it dawned on me that my painting Tokyo Lolita could be a 21st century Ms. Brunet ...

Gregg Chadwick

Tokyo Lolita

24"x18" oil on linen 2010

Manifesta Maastricht Gallery, Maastricht, The Netherlands

More at:
A French Mona Lisa Comes to L.A.
Getty Acquires Moody Manet

The Birth of the L.A. Art World: Pacific Standard Time 1945-1980

Ed Ruscha
Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas
64.5" x 121.75" oil on canvas 1963
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
© Ed Ruscha

Opening this month in Southern California are a series of art exhibitions, Pacific Standard Time, documenting the Los Angeles art scene from 1945-1980. Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California. Initiated through grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time will take place for six months until April 2011.


In a Teaser for Pacific Standard Time, Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers Takes Artist Ed Ruscha for a Ride

The Getty Museum's comphrehensive exhibit of the period, Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970, opens on October 1, 2011.

More at:
Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970

What Does Loss Look Like? (World AIDS Day 2009)

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
-Maya Angelou

Twenty years ago on December 1, 1989 the first Day Without Art was held to spark dialogue and create a day of action concerning the AIDS crisis. At least 800 museums and galleries across the United States closed their doors, shrouded artworks or removed them from view as symbols of mourning and loss. The goal was to show that AIDS can touch everyone. And it worked.



Today on December 1, 2009 museums are again engaged in remembrance for those lost to AIDS and are actively marking the gains that have been made so far. In 1997 the day became known as A Day With(out) Art to reflect the force art can bring to the cause.



Today, A Day With(out) Art has grown into a international collaborative project in which nearly 8,000 museums, galleries, art centers, libraries, high schools and colleges mark the day.



The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has removed from view sixteen artworks to mark World AIDS Day. The artists range from Duccio to Dali. And the subjects range from the young man Eutyches to Andrew Jackson. I have posted a few fragments of the hidden Metropolitan Museum of Art artworks as well as the Getty Museum's draped Maillol sculpture and, in memory of my friend Thom who died of AIDS, an evocative corner from a Buddha monotype I created.







More at:
World AIDS Day
MTV Staying Alive


Courtesy the Getty Museum

Thanks to Bill Roedy for reminding me of Maya Angelou's powerful poem:
Bill Roedy:Despite Huge Successes In HIV Prevention And Treatment, We Must Not Rest On Our Laurels

*Images courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Getty Museum, Los Angeles and the LOOK Gallery, Los Angeles

Getty Museum: 10 Years on the Hill (Dec. 16, 1997 - Dec. 16, 2007)

Today marks the ten year anniversary of architect Richard Meier's Getty campus perched on the hills of Brentwood.
Christopher Hawthorne in the Los Angeles Times explains:

"The design seemed reflective of Los Angeles architecture in another, almost paradoxical way. If the whole idea of L.A. art and architecture was to ignore the idea of fitting in, to reject slavish conformism, then wasn't the Getty a supreme example of precisely that attitude? Turning its back on the notion that it needed to match the spirit of Los Angeles in some prescribed way -- didn't that make it somehow truer to the city than a row of palm trees or a red-tile roof?"

"Perhaps more to the point, the Getty joined a long line of L.A. landmarks that sit at a dramatic remove from the city around them -- most notably Griffith Observatory and Dodger Stadium and houses by John Lautner, Pierre Koenig, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles and Ray Eames, and many others."



The Getty has not been immune to poor leadership and questionable acquisition policies, but the combination of Richard Meier's buildings and Robert Irwin's garden has created a cultural venue that at times, when the light is just right, reminds me of the Taj Mahal.

LA Times on the Getty